Erratics
by Dresden Blue
Summary: AU. Odin makes a different call. What if Loki was raised on Jotunheim? Oneshot. Prize for the 300th reviewer of Aphelion.


**Erratics**

**By Dresden Blue**

Glacial erratic, definition: a large boulder left behind with the retreat of glaciers, often thousands of miles from its starting place.

I.

The first thing you remember is, perhaps ironically, _warmth_. It surrounds you, cups you, holds you, cares for you. You are bathed in it, a strange sort of tenderness that you've never felt before nor since, and everything else is cold in comparison.

Later, you learn that the memory is of Odin, the king that could have killed your father who had tried to abandon you for being too weak; Odin, the king who could have taken you for his own if weakness was what he wanted but instead called it a conqueror's mercy that he bade your father keep you alive after all.

Odin becomes many things in your mind, as does Laufey (who never becomes properly _Father _in your head). You remember Odin and his bright-shining Asgardians, who bleed hot red blood as they die and weep great hot tears for those that do. You remember fire on ice. You remember death, you remember the shame of soldiers who lost against foes they did not respect, you remember the savagery of your own species as they starved in their own homes in the aftermath of war. You remember how you were named by the man who was not your father.

You remember many things, and forget nothing.

II.

You've always been tiny. No one pities you in the palace, and as soon as you are able to escape from the cradle where you are forgotten for long hours at a time you remain out and about; better to be tripped over than to be utterly unknown. You are only honored as the son of the king insofar as you are not killed outright for being a runt, but sometimes it feels like a small honor indeed.

You go to the kitchens for food, you steal it like a rat, like a cat, like a hungry little vermin creature that someone thought to make a pet of but did not love. You certainly do not feast at your father's side as your brother, his firstborn, does. You watch from the shadows of the training yards to get your lessons, or from the rafters peering down at scribbles on parchment of Jotenheim's few scholars. You learn to shy away from those that would kick you as a casual slight to your father, to Odin, to any of those that are stronger than you are that gave you the great burden of not being killed.

You live. You learn. You _survive_.

That's the idea, anyway, but survival is harder than it simply spelling it out with your crooked runes. Living is such a brittle thing, you break a life and there's no putting it back together again, no way to make glassy eyes once more blink into brightness. Once dead it's _gone_, shattered like the little scraps of ice you can now conjure from your hands, forming ten thousand delicate flowers that bloom sublime and die when you let them fall to the ground.

_Ice. _Life is ice. Like the rest of your kind you learn to embrace the constant cold until the whole of you is numb to anything that would try to hurt you.

But life is also fire, and _oh, _how you burn to live!

Your elder brother is much of the reason why you were so readily left to die in the first place: why bother with a second son if he is so obviously weaker than the first? Your brother is strong and bold and cruel, and to him, as to many of the frost giants, you are always a symbol of the oh-so-civilized condescension of the conquerors. One day when he catches you watching him prepare for a raid and he doesn't even think much of it, probably doesn't even think at all: he plucks you from the shadows that you had been hiding in and holds you up by the neck.

It's almost casual how he looks you in the eye as the breath slowly chokes out of you, even as he shakes you like a carcass when you try to squirm out of his grasp. He looks into you like he might a slip of prey, trying to see the family resemblance between the two of you and seeing no more similarity than a wolf might in a fawn.

You're dying. You think of your petty little life on this petty little world and your petty little ice flowers that fall from your fingers as you try desperately try to conjure something that can help you somehow, a sword or a dagger like everyone else can manage, but you can't, _can't_. Laufey was right, and your brother too: you're too weak to even save yourself.

As the world starts to go black you think of the warmth of the Allfather, that fire he bathed you in by merely holding you in his hands. It's sentiment, silly really, but you're just a child and if there was ever

a time it would be acceptable to be sentimental it's when you're dying and there's nothing you can do about it anyway. Idly, you wish that before you die you could at least be warm again, that feeling fierce and foreign. You try to make it the only thing you'll let yourself know as the world disappears around you, that memory., a fire burning deep within you, hot embers in your heart.

But suddenly you're on the ground in a puddle of water, warm _water_ that splashes up against your fingers, and you have your breath again and you are filled with steam and stench of burnt flesh. When you open your eyes it is to the sight of your brother wreathed in brilliant blue flame, his jaw slack as the tendons melt away. Your body decides to react to this, and you watch with curious detachment as you roll over and retch into the spreading pool of water that the fire is making as it melts the surrounding ice. Yet you, **you**_, _this cool creature inside your head, you are crystalline calm at the thought of having killed your kin, even if your child's skin cannot quite handle it yet.

But it will. It _must_. When your body is able, you stand and you look down into the skeleton: the smoke still licks at the white bone of the eye sockets that stare right back into you, failing to comprehend. Then you look around and you are surrounded by your dead brother's soldiers and not one of them has stepped forward or made a sound. They stare. You stare back and meet their gaze for the first time in your life, for though you are still small you are _strong _somehow in a way that they seem to respect.

You are no soldier. You are not like them. You are like no one else. You are a _sorcerer, _and therefore better than they will ever be.

Laufey learns that he has a new heir from the guards, and that very evening he sets you besides him at the feast table, though your feet dangle well above the floor. He almost feels like a father to you, and you almost feel proud.

III.

Yes. You are no soldier, but wars are not won by soldiers. They are won by the tricksters, by tinkerers, by spies and by simulacrums. Wars are won by the clever people that know better than to actually allow themselves to get drawn into a physical fight.

Laufey starts you out on patrols and raids and other little things. He makes more sons to replace you if you fail, or perhaps to kill you if they turn out to be stronger yet, but you make sure he never has need of them. You don't play well with others, least of all with _brothers. _In the paYou are no leader, least of which by example because there is _no one _like you. But no one needs a leader. Not now. Not yet. , but the joten don't need a leader anyway. You weave your webs and ensnare whoever you father defines as your foe, his soldiers obsolete as anything other than meatshields.

You don't particularly care what you do, as long as you live and _learn. _Your little flower crystals become increasingly elaborate: sometimes when the sun is out you create whole meadows of ice that bloom with a terrible beauty that can grow to impale anyone passing by with just a thought. And when you choose to shatter your forests they shine like merciless diamonds, like the stars in the sky that you swear you will one day have as your own.

But that day is not this day. For now, you visit the merchant houses to practice wearing different skins and sometimes flourish your ice flowers with a bow to the daughters of traveling artisans and see what a pretty shade of pink they blush. They do not notice how cold you are to the touch. They don't want to. Why would they? You learn charm, and liecraft, and how to look as if you love them. That is more than what most people receive from their friends. They are grateful.

You are grateful as well—or at least, as grateful as a predator can be to its prey. It is in your nature to exploit, just as it is in theirs to kneel.

IV.

It is natural, of course, that one day you should encounter the heir of Asgard. The meeting is on your own terms, as he has come onto your world. You send your father's meatshields away as soon as you detect your counterpart's presence so that you can deal with this yourself—that is to say, _correctly, _and not just by killing everything in sight.

Thor is a blustering creature, all red and gold that's dim under the baleful light of Jotenheim, but still he stands out like a dying star as he shivers in the cold. You put on the skin of a member of his own species; he doesn't think to try and kill you. It's almost irritatingly easy as he all but weeps for relief as you bring him and his companions to the shelter of a cave and magic them some fire to warm themselves by.

Thor is here to steal a sword—the sword of Surtur, to be precise. Stolen relics are apparently synonymous with status in Asgardian society. Thor gloats about his plan (or lack thereof) even before his teeth have stopped chattering, how_ Father battled so-and-so, Father conquered this-and-that, but Father didn't get his shiny sword_. It grates on you like a kitten's claws. He is a fool, conspicuously so, but a useful one, so you decide to keep him alive. Thor bears little resemblance to the quiet warmth of the Allfather, rather more like a lick of flame torqued out of shape by the wind, simply left unrestrained to grow wild and free and foolish.

You smile as graciously as you can at his clumsy, discourteous ways. "Who are you?" he asks eventually, rubbing his hands before the crackling fire.

"A friend," you answer, and you're barely even lying. You _are _helping them, and their kind; just not in the way that they think they need for themselves, and certainly not in the way they want.

By the time you've finished with them, you have Thor's undying friendship, the camaraderie of three additional fools, you know the location of the Sword of Surtur—and you have convinced Thor that said sword must have already been retrieved by the fire giants, a secret weapon.

You'll take the sword for yourself later, of course, but you'd really rather redirect Asgard's restless youth somewhere other than your home planet. Let the fire giants and the Asgardians wear themselves out on each other. "We're not your enemies," you tell Thor as you prepare them for departure, and he nods in dumb agreement, believing you and your fair skin and green eyes that all look wholly unlike the monsters he had been raised to hate. Some joten are different, he begins to believe; he's right, but you don't feel like telling him just how, exactly, the differences are more than skin deep. It'd complicate things.

You explain your plan to Laufey in terms you think he will understand, careful to hide the conversation from Asgard's eyes who now know you to be a figure of interest. "A son of Jotunheim," he rasps, and you smile.

V.

Your first visit to Asgard is... difficult. The illusion must be held for days, lest the pale gods are given cause to remember just how deeply alien you are. You've never smiled so much in your life, either: your mouth begins to ache even just after the welcoming feast they throw in your honor. This is a very different sort of battle, but one that leaves you every bit as sore—your back is bruised from where Thor slaps you after roaring out in approval at one of your black jests, your stomach aches from these rich foods that are heavy with honey and cheese and so very different from the cold raw meats you are used to, your feet stiff from the formalwear you attire yourself in so that you do not look so foreign, your lungs ache from the smoke from the fires that burn in every room, your eyes from the bright gold that overs every surface in this gilded world...

And your heart, _oh _how it aches. Odin makes a speech about friendship between the realms. You are solemn throughout, though Thor grins broadly and holds up his hammer that he is gifted for what is considered a successful first stab at diplomacy in that he managed _not _to cause international incident when he ran away to Jotunheim for another toy. Odin does not speak of how he had found you, abandoned, and how he had forced Laufey to let you live; he does not mention how he had held you, does not say any tender warm things. He reserves such platitudes for his son, who flushes almost as red as his cloak in his pleasure.

Odin does not speak to you at all. He does, however, spare you the occasional glance with his one good eye, though when you look back he is always the first to glance away.

_Guilt_, you realize, _and shame_. His son is a blustering creature and you sit at the feast table with poise, the perfect prince; you would have been a better son of Asgard. You look about the golden hall filled with useless sacks of meat that cover themselves with fine silks and furs and metals as if that would make them _better _than your blue skinned brethren that bare their bodies to the elements and you resolve to make this pretty place yours—and rid it of those that make it stagnate like dying embers of a once great inferno of power. What gods are these, that can be so taken by the simple lies you spin for them? Not ones that deserve the power they had crafted for themselves centuries ago when they conquered your father's world and have since been complacent with. These gods drink too deeply of the gifts they have been given, and now sway drunk on their own glory in their seats.

Oh, _yes. _You would empty these halls of Thor's clumsy gloatings and his friends' clumsier attempts to please him; you would flush these halls of the the mead that slows the minds of those around you, of the sweat of warriors who even as they honor you make mockery of your sorcery and spellcraft—and you'd do it all without spilling a drop of blood.

More or less. Red is such a lovely color on Thor, after all.

VI.

Thor takes you adventuring. Sometimes, he claps you on the back and calls you brother, as if that was what you wanted. There is a curious attraction to his graceless strength, but it is easy to recall older lessons about dangerous things like brotherhood; such sentiment wilts and dies almost as soon as it wells up.

Your chance comes not long after he is coronated heir, a tasteless affair that leaves Thor hungering to prove himself worthy of the title he now bears on his broad shoulders with such poor balance. You were on the dais amongst friends and family, and couldn't help but smile back when he grinned at you, eyes bright as a bonfire. What a delectably ignorant fool.

He's still smiling when he dies, barely days later. It's a pitiful death for a pitiful god, on a pitiful mission to seek out the Sword of Surtur where your planted rumors whisper it had been kept as part of a swelling invasion force. Thor trips, on the smallest and subtlest of your cantrips, missing his step and falling right onto his opponent's sword.

"Brother!" Thor sputters out as he dies, having bashed in the brains of his killer but unable to heal himself. "Brother, take care of Asgard, promise me."

"I promise," you say; you rarely need to lie around any of them, you've discovered. You summon some tears to well up in your eyes, even as you freeze his heart with the hand that cradles him against your chest—just in case the fire giant's sword caused insufficient damage. Sif and the Warriors Three are running to your side, having fought off the last of the fire giants. You pick up Thor in your arms, staggering a bit under his weight: Thor is dead and you are alive and all you need to do is look appropriately shocked at your audience, even though you knew it would come to this all along.

You return to Asgard, your escort in tears. Thor's body is barely even cold when the court begins to make noises of war against the fire giants—Sif, Frigga, Odin, Heimdall, all of Asgard rallying themselves around the false cause you have constructed. You grace them with fair words about their fallen hero and they give you in return the splatter of mead as they make drunken toasts to the one who brought back their prince's body from the place of fire, and swear to kill all the monsters that threaten them. You are there for every wake, for every weeping warrior, and when Asgard emerges from its mourning you are a prince to them in all but name.

You, of course, only smile. They do not seem to mind the monsters that dress as they do.

VII.

Balder is born. As you hold him in your hands as his godfather, holding him warm and safe as Odin once did you and now to another, you swear to slay this child too.

Frigga, first. You test the seeding of dreams on merchants before you dare touch her, you do not forget your caution. When it has become an unpredictable epidemic that no one knows to cure, you have her dream, too: of the end of her world, the whole of it consumed by the fires of Surtur, of the death of Thor, of your death, too, of Odin's, of Balder's, of the host of minor characters that crowd her life at court like Tyr and Heimdall and Sif and all the rest who waste their lives on feasts and fighting. Anything she treasures she sees destroyed in the long dark nights where not even the Allfather can reach her.

Once she is convinced that these things are prophecy, so vivid the dreams become, you have her dream of falling from the high spires of Asgard. She follows these motions soon after, Balder having barely ceased suckling at her breasts.

You mourn with grace, and you stand at the Allfather's side at the funeral where the broken body of his wife is wreathed first in veils, and then in flames. Balder clutches at your cold hands for comfort.

VIII.

You wait until Balder is a child in the full flower of his naivete before you kill Laufey in single combat, according to what few traditions left to Jotunheim after a thousand years of stagnation. There was never even a chance for your martially inclined father: his heart is frozen within his chest before he can even strike a single blow.

You are crowned king of Jotunheim. There is no coronation, no inquiry into why you killed its last king: the strong kill the weak and you are _quite _strong now, your skill at spellcraft having long since rendered you a god among mere giants.

Asgard, of course, is more full of questions: patricide is taken a little more seriously here. You tell them that Laufey plotted to destroy Asgard, which is true. Laufey did not understand that you can conquer without completely killing everything, and was stupid enough to say his plans aloud when Heimdall was watching. "I merely keep the peace," you demure, "peace among friends."

Balder's eyes are shining like the sun.

IX.

You need nothing more from Odin, really, now that you are considered his king and equal. You wait another century, in which Balder watches you as you change _everything _in Jotunheim, building an economy, academies, cities, traniing soldiers and scholars and sorcerers alike. Jotunheim is still a somber place but as Balder grows so does your kingdom, an industry that reminds you of (and, truth be told was inspired by) Midgard. You've learned much in your adventures with Thor, and now it is time to apply the more subtle lessons that had escaped your more martially inclined companion.

Your life is full, now that you have drunk deeply of the cup of others.

Balder cries when Odin tells him that he is dying; you can feel the warm flutter of his panicked heart when he burrows his face, still soft from baby fat, into your chest. It looks like old age, but really it is the poison slipped in with a little prestidigitation every time you come to the feast hall for another "diplomatic" visit. Both of Odin's eyes are now blind, one gouged out and the other rheumy and yellowed-white like old snow. "Loki," he rasps, "Loki, son of my heart, save Asgard."

You promise, and find the paper to name you regent until Balder is grown. Odin signs with his seal, the twisted triangle tangled up in itself like a little web of lies.

When you ascend the throne it is with regret in your eyes, Balder sitting at your side on the high seat with his legs still dangling in the air. You unsheathe the sword of Surtur before the court of Asgard and proclaim a war of conquest against a third realm, that of the fire giants upon whom you blame the deaths of Thor, of Frigga, of the Allfather, and as the court roars for blood the flames leap higher and higher until they seem to burn the very stars.

You feel the heat of the sword, feel a warmth so keen it almost burns your heart: you stare up and out into the cold dark of space and your blood sings hot and red and you swear to take it all.

**A/N**:

Gift for the 300th reviewer of **Aphelion**, my novellength HPxAvengers work. Thanks .Executioner! She wasn't sure what she wanted, so I threw some plotbunnies of mine at her and this was the one she selected – an AU in which Loki is raised in Jotunheim instead of Asgard. What did you guys think?-did it seem plausible?

What about the style of it? I've been playing around with different POVs and tenses and levels of description recently. Too minimalistic, too abstract, what? Feedback much appreciated! I always go back and edit based on the constructive criticism of reviewers, so your thoughts are welcome.

For those interested, I've recently put together a Tumblr where I accumulate multimedia that inspires me to write – gifs, music, meta commentary, etc., as well as updates and changes to stories like this. Username dresdenblue, link on my profile.

Last updated 3/5/2013.


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